Sorry to disappoint some of you, but a bare boat is not a
cruise ship full of nudists. On the other hand, given what a bare boat
really is and the circumstances, there's no reason you can't go sailing as
totally nude as your sunblock lotion rating will allow.

Bareboating involves renting a fully equipped boat (sail
or power) and operating it yourself. Boats range in size from intimate
two-person craft to those large enough to host a few dozen passengers. Many
of the resources reviewed this week also offer training for the required
certification. If you wish, you may hire an optional chef or skipper or
complete crew.

The bareboat concept is especially popular in regions
such as the Caribbean, Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Mediterranean and South
Pacific where the boating season is long enough to make it an attractive
business proposition. Often, the boats available for charter are someone's
prized possession that is rented out, usually through a broker, to defray
the cost of ownership.

If you've owned a boat of any size, you no longer think
it's funny to hear "boat"
defined as, "a hole in the water into which
you pour money." Affordable Yachting is an
association of boat owners who rent their boats directly to vacationers in
hopes of reducing the size of that hole.

Charters are not limited to tropical waters. There are
summertime operators in Canada and throughout the USA. Some of the best
venues are deep in the heartland around the Great Lakes. Even the fjords of
Alaska's Inside Passage are bareboatable in season through North Sailing Charter.

Also, huge inland seas formed behind major dams in
Kentucky, Tennessee, California, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Alabama and
elsewhere lend themselves to delightful houseboat cruising. Those are worthy
of an entire column and will be covered in next week's Travel The Net.

Boatz 'n Yachtz offers
an impressive overview of bareboating. However, the pages suffer from that
old left-to-right scrolling problem. The BVI Vacations site is less detailed
but more accessible. The Moorings, working through a network
of agents, seems to have the broadest coverage in terms of locations and
equipment.

If you have a lot more patience than I have, the
Bareboat Depot promises access to "the world's largest fleet of bareboat
sailboats and motor yachts." I hope those who run the operation know more
about maritime navigation than the painfully little they apparently know
about web site navigation. It's a mess. Maybe the facts are in there
somewhere, but I gave up after too many meaningless banners and silly
animated graphics without ever finding solid information.

In contrast, a refreshing sea breeze is found at Wild Cat Sailing Co. The pages are
well organized and (almost) free of animated gimmicks. Its Caribbean
selection, boasted as the largest of its type in the region, is focused on
Trimarans and Catamarans. The sailing school offers lessons for " . . .
novice and experienced sailors alike. You can come along as a whole family
and have a combined instruction and vacation week keeping everyone happy. Or
you can try some serious 'down island' cruising learning the art of
celestial navigation and tasting some blue water seamanship along the way."

One of its competitors, The Catamaran Company,
hosts an equally clean and informative web site. There are a number of
membership clubs that promise significant bareboat charter savings. I have
no information on how well any deliver on their promises but if the Caribbean Cruising Club is
typical, the prices seem to be a bargain.

Bareboat charter operators from around the world are
linked from Boat Show. But, since
the list is limited to paid advertisers, here's a selection of additional
sources by region or country: